40 Years After Chernobyl: What Caused the Disaster — and How It Changed Nuclear Energy

Forty years ago, news was only beginning to emerge that an accident had occurred — one that could put millions of people at risk. A reactor at Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, then part of the Soviet Union, had exploded, releasing a plume of radioactive gases and particles into the atmosphere and spreading some of the most hazardous radionuclides known to humanity. We look back at what caused this…